LEON OSMAN has seen it all before – ten seasons as a Toffee have left him immune to either extremes of positivity or negativity around the Blues fortunes.

The laid-back midfielder could sum up his approach with a line from Rudyard Kipling’s oft-quoted ‘If’; ‘If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two impostors just the same..’.

From the highs of finishing fourth in 2005 and a trip to Wembley in 2009, to the lows of scraping clear of relegation in 2004 and seeing that unexpected Champions League dream die the following year.

So ask Osman whether he is concerned by a quiet summer in the transfer market, or the difficulty of competing against teams who have invested millions in quality players, and he is distinctly underwhelmed.

From an individual point of view, the 30-year-old finished last season in the form of his career, sparking talk of an England call-up, and now he simply wants to get back to enjoying his job again.

“I don’t get sucked into the things that are going on (off the pitch),” he says. “I’ve seen it all before and we’ve actually got a really good squad now.

“It’s always nice to hear that players want to come to your club, and sign on and join what you’re doing. But if that’s not going to happen, then so be it. It shouldn’t affect us on the pitch.”

Osman, it’s clear, is not one to let the club’s problems in finding new investment give him sleepless nights.

“From my point of view it’s been spoken about for many years now and never materialised,” he says. “There’s no point reading too much into things, we’ve just got to get our heads down and crack on with the things we can affect – not things that happen off the pitch.”

Osman was one of the Blues’ most effective performers last season – they won 50% of games with him in the side compared to just 17% without – and he successfully filled the creative void left by Steven Pienaar’s departure in January.

“For me and the team the season probably finished a little bit too soon,” he says. “It’s well recorded that we only seem to get a head of steam up after Christmas.

“For the last three or four seasons we’ve only got into our stride in the second half, and it’s a little bit disappointing that hasn’t happened sooner.

“We were all ready for a rest, but we’ve had that now and it’s time to try and put right the problems we’ve had with starting in the past on a personal and team level.

“The season is coming up pretty fast and we just need to know what our jobs are and get on with them.”

Those as yet ignored cries for an England call-up peaked when Osman scored a spectacular header in a memorable home victory over Manchester City at Goodison, but the 5ft 7in player is unfazed by his lack of recognition from Fabio Capello to date.

“It’s not something I can affect. I can affect how I perform, and enjoy my football. The second half of the season I had a lot of fun out there playing football, and played quite well, getting results,” he says. “It was a really enjoyable time, but what happens after that is out of my hands.”

Osman agrees with fellow veteran Tim Cahill that Everton could benefit from reduced expectations this term.

“When the expectation levels are high, you go into games and people are aware they’ve got a big game coming up when they play you,” he says. “We became a big target and a big game for teams.

“But when you’re off the radar other teams take their foot off the gas a bit and we can come over the top of that. Hopefully it happens this season.”

Osman can see some parallels with the summer of 2004, when Everton sold Wayne Rooney but went on to finish fourth.

He said: “There are certainly comparisons. I was here then and I’m here now. The feel of things, and the way people have spoken about us. Like then we hadn’t really brought anyone in during the summer, but our squad now is a lot better.

“We managed to finish fourth back then. Also the level of the Premier League has gone up since then., the quality of the opponents is higher. But we’re quietly confident in ourselves and we can pull off something similar (to 05).

“This squad rates very highly to any in the last 10 years. The group of players we have at the moment are some of the best we’ve had at the club, certainly in the last two or three seasons.

“We’re certainly positive. There’s no point being negative. We have to look at ourselves and say we’re capable.” of playing well.”